ALTON — Rep. Jane Cormier, a Republican, announced yesterday that because she and her husband, Carlos Martinez, are moving to Hooksett she will be resigning her seat representing Alton, Barnstead and Gilford in the House of Representatives.

Cormier, who has lived in Alton for the past 16 years, said that the couple has grown weary of commuting to back and forth from Alton to Manchester, an expensive round trip of two hours and 20 minutes. Together they teach music and voice in Manchester and have been commuting for much of the past 22 years. Moreover, Cormier said the move will enable her son Christopher, himself a promising musical talent, to enroll in the exemplary music program at Pinkerton Academy in Derry.

Martinez, a member of the Alton School Board, will also be resigning his position.

Cormier was elected in 2012 and has served as the clerk of the Belknap County Convention for the past two years. Last year she co-founded Belknap County Conservative Republicans with the stated intention of recruiting conservative candidates to seek elected and appointed positions in municipal government. As a legislator she spent of the current session campaign against the Granite State Future project and filed a bill to abolish the nine regional planning commissions, which the House rejected by a vote of 238 to 91.

A regular columnist in "The Weirs Times," Cormier has been a strident critic of Common Core.

"Have I considered running for the state legislature from my new home district?" Cormier asked rhetorically in a prepared statement, answering "absolutely, I have and I am because the voters in my new district deserve an elected official who respects their liberty as much as I want mine and my family's defended."

However, she stressed that she has made no formal announcement other than to reveal that she is contemplating forming an exploratory committee to run for the State Senate in District 16, the seat held by incumbent Republican David Boutin, who won the seat in a special election in February 2010 and has twice been re-elected. Cormier said that her interest in the Senate seat "apparently has Democrats and Progressives all atwitter, literally and figuratively."